The first memory that Pippin Took recalled was not of his mother, or his father, or his score of morally ambiguous sisters …it was of his nanny. She wasn't a Took, this was important to remember, she wasn't even from Tookland. She was born to a poor family of farmers just outside of Tightfield. She had no breeding what so ever, most people did not even believe her when she said her parents were married.

It wasn't a full memory…not really…it was fuzzy and…and only really there when he closed his eyes at night. It was her voice though, fuzzy shapes, and the warm feel of his feather pillow beneath his cheek…and her voice. She was telling him a story, a story of hobbits, hobbits and their dead. It wasn't the kind of story people were supposed to tell young Tooks.

It was about a Ganyman…something he hadn't known he wasn't supposed to talk about, until his father had burst into the nursery halfway through the story and dragged the Nanny out before she could finish telling it. He never did hear what happened to that poor old hobbit hunted by all the ghosts he never helped in life. Maybe if he had…things would have turned out differently.

That was the last time they ever hired anyone outside the Tooks to care for their heir. In years to come Pippin would think of that story…of the old hobbit with ghosts of deeds undone, and he'd think …if only.

The Shire, Hobbiton, Bag End: T.A. 2999

The first time he saw one of them…. like real proper, not just hearing someone through the wall at Great Aunt Lalia's Smial, he was at Cousin Bilbo's house. Cousin Bilbo who wasn't fun anymore, cousin Bilbo who locked himself in his study all day most days, and cousin Bilbo who got especially cranky on the anniversary of the hangings.

Merry said it was better to just avoid him anyway…but now Merry was avoiding Pippin as well. He'd shot into Cousin Frodo's room the second they'd stepped through the door, slamming that door right in Pippin's face. When he'd knocked and tried to get them to let him inside, both older tweens had screamed at him to just go away. Rude…very rude…why if they'd been back at the Great Smials this would have never been allowed. No door was left closed to him, he was their heir, their only boy. But this wasn't the great Smials, the Tooks didn't rule Bag End. Now that Cousin Bilbo had retreated into his sanctuary of books and maps, Frodo ruled here, and Frodo didn't want to see Pippin right now. Well, fine, then Pippin hadn't wanted to see Frodo either…he'd go out into the garden…he'd sit in the grass and think about how unfair it all was.

And maybe he'd have done that…if there hadn't been a hobbit already there. He was old…just past the comfortable hobbit middle age, and he was kneeling in the dirt at the base of Bag End's magnificent flowerbeds. Pip should have ignored the old codger…wandered off to another corner of the garden to build up a real good sulk…but something drew him to that strange hobbit. Something…something that even now in adult hood, Pippin still couldn't explain.

As his stumbling child feet clattered down the sloping lawn of Bag End's garden, Pippin had felt that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. That same feeling he'd felt in Aunt Lalia's house when the voices in his head had screamed at him to let them out of the wall.

His foot brushed against the wrong blade of grass and the strange hobbit's head snapped up.

'Who's there?'

A strange accent, not quite lower Hobbiton. Part of him had wanted to stay silent – a strange occurrence in the life of any Took let alone this one – but another louder part couldn't have, even if it wanted to.

'I'm Pip, this is my cousin's garden…who are you?'

The Hobbit laughed, an old creaking sound like the rustle of wind against very tall trees.

'My name…aye but what is a name to someone like me, the cousin you say…so either this place has changed hands very quickly or I'd be supposing you mean Mister Bilbo's kin. Tell me Pip, Baggins or Took? Ye have the look of a Took, but I've found that doesn't always tell us our kin.'

Pippin didn't know why back then, or Valar even now, but he had been strangely annoyed by this…this non-answer.

'I'm a Took…by name and Blood…what are you?'

'By name and Blood, you say, well that's always been important to the Tooks I suppose…having both.'

He still hadn't answered Pip's question – but he smiled, and it was such a nice, comforting smile, that for a second Pippin didn't care – settled to just retrieve his answers by observation instead. He was younger than Cousin Bilbo…probably, cousin Bilbo didn't really age so it was hard to tell. He kind of looked like…

'Mister Pippin, what do you think you're doing?'

The strange hobbit and Pippin both jerked their heads to stare at the burly hobbit lad marching, spade in hand, over to them. Samwise Gamgee was usually a pleasant fellow, with a smile and a laugh kinder than all the servants in the Great Smials combined. So, to see such a pleasant face gone nearly tomato red with rage was a sight indeed for the boy and left him feeling oddly guilty, though he didn't know why.

'I didn't think we're doing anything but standing here, Sam. But if I'm wrong please tell me…I'm just small…bigger hobbit ways are a mystery to me.'

Strangely guilty he might have been, but Pippin was still a Took and talking horse dung is what Took's did best…or at least that was what his uncle said when Pip's mother was out of earshot. Anyway, it had the intended effect of stopping the gardener lad in his tracks, not – as some of his relatives might have suspected – because the other hobbit was too slow or dim to comprehend the Took heir's meaning, but because it seemed so strange to hear it coming from a child.

'Aye,' said the gardener finally regaining his bearings on the situation. 'That you are, but where is this, we you speak of. To my eye it is nought but Peregrin Took standing there in the hilled flower patch. My own Da first seeded that patch ten years ago, and Mister Bilbo won't thank you for messing it.'

With a wild feeling of panic taking hold of him Pippin jerked his head back, intending to spy the strange hobbit kneeling at the base of the flower patch…but saw nothing at all. The hobbit was gone, leaving not even a crushed stem to show that his presence had been anything but an allusion of the young Took's mind.

'He was there,' said the boy now in a panic…for many things he may have been, but a liar was never one of them.

'Aye,' said Samwise Gamgee in an almost sad way. 'I've no doubt he was.'

Middle-Earth, Rohan: T.A 3019, 5 March

Over the years Pippin saw many hobbits like that one in the garden, it was just one of those things he learned to ignore about the world. Like why Rangers patrolled the borders of the Shire, but never really seemed to want to step inside it. Why his parents would travel long out of their way just to avoid a particular stretch of land where a town had once stood.

It was easy to do, good times, laughter, and plenty of alcohol where not hard to find in the Shire…especially for a Took. Sometimes he'd be so drunk, or so zoned out on Longbottom Leaf that Merry would have to tuck him into bed at night…like he was naught but a lad. Sometimes Pippin's mother worried that her son would never find a direction in life, a purpose that he cared about enough to put down the pipe for…since clearly his family's title did nothing but inspire terror in him. But she was wrong of course, he did have a purpose, a direction for his life …he had Merry.

Merry guided his life, Merry gave him purpose…why he'd follow Merry right out the Shire and beyond it if he had to. And he had, why Cousin Frodo and poor long-suffering Sam Gamgee couldn't be allowed to stumble around beyond the borders of the Shire with no sensible hobbits to watch their backs. Anything could happen, why they could wander all the way up a mountain of fire if they weren't careful.

He'd followed Merry all the way into the court of the King of Rohan. It'd been funny to see hobbits there, let alone hobbits with such familiar features. Mostly lower-class families and names but every so often you saw a Took nose among the strange gaggle of Rohan hobbits. And of course, there was the Fool, who spoke in strange rhyming tongues and smiled at Pippin as if he knew the punchline to the joke that was Pippin Took. But none of that mattered…because he had Merry…none of the terrible things in life mattered at all as long as he had Merry by his side.

He could laugh at the pinched and wailing faces of hobbits no one else could see, so long as Merry was there to hand him a mug of ale to drink his dark thoughts away. Yes, he could do anything while Merry was by his side…but as that small salute standing on the edge of Edoras' battlements faded away under the rush of Shadowfax's thundering feet, he realised…that he didn't know what to do when he wasn't.

Three hours and one head injury later

When he woke again the world was upside down…and spinning at an odd angle. Something had gotten the drop on him and Gandalf when they'd stopped by a stream in the forest of Drúadan, to refill their waterskins. Now there were people all around them…well all around Pip, for who knew where the wizard was…he thought they were hobbits but no…no their feet were too small and…and their faces ugly compared to his kin. But they spoke like hobbits…they mumbled to each other in that strange tongue…the one only hobbits that kept the old ways knew, the one his old nanny used to sooth him to sleep at night. The Nanny his father told him had been spreading lies about their family…the one who had told him the story about the old Ganyman, and suddenly Pippin didn't want to hear that sound anymore.

'Stop! Please, Stop!'

And they did, they stopped talking completely and turned their faces…their ugly faces, upwards to stare at the young Took who hung over their heads like a dried-out slab of meat. Then one of them barked and suddenly Pippin was no longer up in the air anymore, and the ground became a real and very solid thing indeed.

In a dizzy state he looked up and met the eyes of the one that had barked, and beheld utter perfection before him. The girl laughed…a harsh bark against the silence of the others around them, and Pippin… smiled…the first real smile he'd had since…since Merry. She grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet, the rope that had been tethering him to that tree – now snapped as the brittle bones of the dead – still clung to his belly and he felt for the first time quite the fool. Girls never usually made him feel like that, they were just silly angry things in nice dresses…they didn't make him feel like this. They didn't make him feel like…like Merry did.

He'd known he'd loved his cousin Merry since he was old enough to understand what that kind of love was. He'd know that for as long as he might live there would only be one person for him, one person that would make him feel whole…that could make him feel right. That could make him forget the faces he could see staring at him from out of the corners of his eyes.

But maybe he'd been wrong.

He stretched out his hand and clasped hers in a jittering shake.

'I'm Pippin Took.'

And she smiled again, and Pippin felt that tingle of butterflies in his stomach.

'I'm Diamond…Diamond Took.'

Diamond…Diamond Took. That was her name, she was a hobbit and yet she wasn't…she was something else, something older than hobbits. At least he thought they were, they certainly acted like they were.

The Men of the Drúadan were a small people, an ugly people…well ugly to hobbits anyway. But that wasn't true either was it, otherwise Diamond wouldn't exist. Her father was a Took and her mother was the daughter of the Drúadan High Chief. She carried both her people in her face, her mother's barrel chest and her father's large wide feet. She was a Took, she was a Wild Man and she…she was amazing. She was the most amazing person Pippin had ever met…well there was Merry but then Merry was Merry and no one could be him.

There was a whole load of talk between the Drúadan elders and Gandalf, but Pippin didn't listen. He didn't need to; Gandalf had told him to be quiet and he'd do just that. He'd be as quiet as the breeze, after all he didn't need to speak to look upon her beauty.

He looked upon her beauty as their elders talked, and after as she led them through the safest paths of the Drúadan forest. He even looked upon her beauty as they were riding away...watching for a second time that day, the person he loved growing smaller and smaller upon the horizon.

Merry had laughed at him afterwards for falling for someone so quickly, and not even exchanging words more than an introduction...but he wasn't laughing quite so hard anymore, when she'd showed up in the Shire a year later.

The Shire: F.O. 06

It was a dark day the next time he saw her, the rain was pouring down and, in the distance, you could just hear the rumble of thunder. It was not in fact a day one expected to hear a rapping on their bedroom door…especially when the house was supposed to be empty.

It was just a small smial, something he and Merry had bought together after…well after they'd come home. It was just something they used when they needed to get away from their suddenly quite stressful and demanding lives…apparently once you saved the world you were expected to care how it was run. Their parents hadn't liked it, thought that he and Merry should be more focused on the duties of their houses instead of well…just going back to their old lives, their old bar habits, but Pippin had needed it. Even now, under the slow burn of the alcohol in his veins he could still hear voices crying out to be heard, for someone anyone to notice them. But he wasn't the hobbit to do it…he decided long ago that he wasn't going to be the hero of anyone's story…not anymore.

Half stumbling to the door he kicked an old ale mug out of his path, and wrenched the wretched thing open. The hooded figure that stood before him was soaking wet, dripping the icy chill of rain water all over his new floor.

'Merry…this isn't funny…you know we have to clean up after ourselves now, no maid service will work for us anymore after that last prank you pulled.'

The figure stepped forward.

'Alright…alright…the last prank I pulled…but come on you were laughing just as hard.'

Another step, and Pippin felt his own feet give way to the person…who…who probably wasn't Merry at all.

'Funny…Pippin Took.'

They lowered their hood, with a dramatic air even Gandalf would be proud of.

'Always so funny.'

And Pippin laughed.

If there was any stranger way to meet your future wife…you know other, then her people tying you up and hanging you from a tree…Pippin didn't know it.

They married, oh there were a lot of things that came before that of course – not least among which was getting his mother's approval. But then Pearl announced that she was marrying a farmer from Tightfield, so as far as the old gal was concerned Pippin could marry a hedgehog so long as she had the last name Took – but what's important is that they married.

They were married for a long time after that, they were married when Frodo left for the Grey Havens, they were married when they had their first son – and Pippin somehow convinced Diamond to name him Faramir – who was every inch the spit of his father. They were married for their second son – and Pippin somehow managed to trick her into naming him Boromir – whose mother's people shone clearly on his face.

They were married for a long time….and Pippin had even thought happily so…until they weren't.

F.O. 17

Pippin started it…Pippin always started it, or at least that was what Diamond screamed after her as she slammed the door. But that wasn't true…Pippin hadn't started it, Aragorn had started it, the second he lopped off Merry's head. And Pippin would have died too if Éowyn hadn't smuggled him out of that city. Perhaps they shouldn't have trusted that summons of peace and welcome, after all the hobbit mages under Pippin's command had humiliated the king's troops. But it had only been a bit of fun, a slight of hand – surely old Strider had a sense of humour.

No, as it turned out, he didn't.

And now Merry was dead.

Everything went down the crapper after that, his marriage, his kids, his life…nothing was ever the same again…nothing seemed to matter after that.

All they did now was scream at each other, and the boys, and their friends, and even on one very bad occasion his mother. She said all he cared about was Merry…all he dreamed about was Merry…and he couldn't tell her she was wrong, but she didn't understand why. She thought it was because he loved Merry more than her…more than the boys…but that wasn't it at all. He loved Diamond, he loved their boys…but Merry…Merry was air…Merry was the reason Pippin kept living…the reason he hadn't smashed his head against a brick wall to make the voices stop. And now that he was gone, what was there left? Not Peregrin Took, Knight of Gondor, or Thain of the Shire…just poor little Pippin Took…and the voices in his head.

He'd never told her about the voices…he'd never told anyone…just Merry.

But Merry was gone…and now there was no one to keep them away. They snuck into his dreams at night, his wandering thoughts during the day, and his nightmares in the parts in-between. They were…everywhere in this new Shire…echoes of the past curling up from the ruins of Sharkey's reign, and there was nowhere for Pippin to escape it. Nowhere but inside his own head, where one voice at least was not terrifying at all…where he could hear Merry's voice again.

Help me it said, save me it screamed and no matter how much he tried…Pippin could not bring himself to hate that voice, because it was Merry. It wasn't like the others, it wasn't a nameless voice behind Lalia Took's wall…it was Merry, and Merry needed him.

Of course, Pippin had no idea how to help him, having been so focused on drowning out the voices, and the shades in his life that the idea that he would ever interact…let alone help one of them was so strange he'd never even considered it before. But it was Merry and how could he leave Merry out there alone.

'What do I have to do?'

He'd whisper in the dead of night, the only time when he could be sure that Diamond could not be awakened…and he'd wait to hear Merry's reply.

'Help me.'

It spoke.

'Save me.'

It cried.

'How? How can I help you?'

Pippin sobbed, but the reply never came from Merry's voice…or rather never came from Merry's voice alone. It was as if they were all speaking to him at once, but not as if they were many people with one voice, but one person with many voices. Over and over again that phantom of many voices screamed at him, and over and over again Pippin had no reply, for the two words that it screamed at him was not something that required an answer.

Those two words, or as we should say that one name.

Marigold Gamgee.

Hobbiton

In the town of Hobbiton, up near where the party tree once stood there was a grave…not a real one mind you, they couldn't get her body to fit in a real one, but a marker. A tree beautiful and strong, and planted in the memory of one person in particular: Marigold Gamgee.

Pippin had visited the site before, of course he had…Samwise was…had been one of the young Took's closest friends. But after the news from the East…the terrible news from the East, Pippin couldn't bear to step foot in Hobbiton anymore. What was there to make him …Sam and Rosie, and baby Elanor were long dead ghosts, though their voices never joined the chorus inside his skull. Even Bag End no longer felt like a welcoming sight anymore, the Gamgees departure had left the old Smial alone and empty…for all of three months, before the younger generation of Baggins, or at least Baggins adjacent had claimed it as their party house. Even from all the way back at the grave of Marigold Gamgee, Pippin could hear the loud bombastic sounds of their drums and their trumpets…and he'd hate to think of what it sounded like to the rest of Bagshot row.

But he didn't care about any of that now…not the friends buried alive in a desert thousands of miles away…not the ringing of trumpets in his ear, no all he cared about was the tree, or more importantly the small headstone at its base that said one simple thing

Here Lies Marigold Gamgee

She was a Ganyman

And she was loved

Pippin laid his palm on those carven words, closed his eyes, and for once in his life let the shadows that had plagued his every step since birth, in.

It is a lie to say that the Hobbits…or as they are known in the texts of the Ganymen, the children of Hobbick are a minor or even small race. True their psychical stature might be small, but they are an ancient people whose culture extends past the relatively narrow boundaries of the Shire. For it was in the ancient forests of Beleriand where the Ancestors took their first steps, and since then untold generations of their descendants have lived and dwelled across the land called Middle-Earth.

Now I'm sure you're asking yourself, why is this important? Why is it important that there are not only many hobbits alive in the age that Pippin Took sat before the grave marker of Marigold Gamgee, but many that had come before. Well, I'll tell you: so many souls clambering to be heard, to be seen, trapped in the world beyond, the other realm, the realm that only the Ganyman may find the door to. There is not a parade of souls waiting on the other side, ready for someone to open that door, or a crowd, or even a congregation, there is an ocean. And to understand all that came next, and why it was so terrible, you must understand this – it was not just the dead spirit of Merry Brandybuck that cried out to be released, to be let back into the world, it was all of them.

They'd been summoned there…to that spot that marker marked…by one who was trained…and they had liked it. They had liked walking in the air again, they had liked being home…but when she had died, they had to leave again. But the Gamgee line are not the only ones with powers to listen to the dead, and an untrained Ganyman is a dangerous thing indeed.

Not many of our histories tell what happened next…and not many Ganymen would dare to try to pry it from the mouths of the dead who were there. So, all I can tell you is what was passed down to me from family legend. What I can tell you is that that day the sky turned black though the sun still shone, what I can tell you is that there was a terrifying howl that reached through every land north of Rohan, and what I can definitely tell you is that no living creature was left sane…for no living creature was left alive at all.

It came for them all, that swirling mass of spirits that were…that had been friends, and family and ancestors long dead but were now nothing more than the howling mass that scorched down the streets of the Shire, of Bree, of Lake Town, Erabor and Rivendell…and all those places in between that do not bear mentioning in a tale like this. Every place it hit changed and twisted until it was not a place at all but a trap. A trap for all those who were foolish enough to pass the border of Fangorn forest…a trap for all those that were brave enough to even try.

This is the legacy of Peregrin Took, the Ganyman who never was.